Best 70 quotes in «dysfunctional family quotes» category

You cannot fix people who will not take feedback, because from their perspective, they do not have a problem.

You do not have to come from healthy to create healthy.

You can tell a lot about a person's childhood by whether or not they like Christmas.

You have the right to set ground rules. This means deciding if, when, and how you want to see the people in your family. Many survivors feel that if they open up the channels at all, they have to open them up all the way. When you were a child you had two options—to trust or not to trust. Your options are broader now.

You don’t want to threaten me sis.

A dysfunctional family is any family with more than one person in it.

You never turn away family, no matter how f***ed up they are.

You were tossed away like a pair of beautiful, brand new shoes that did not quite fit.

A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.

I come from a dysfunctional family, so my views of parents and parenting used to be highly mixed.

I came from an extraordinarily dysfunctional family, full of abuse and alcoholism. And eventually everyone within the family had committed suicide.

Dysfunctional families have sired a number of pretty good actors.

I grew up in a dysfunctional family.

If you grew up in a dysfunctional family, then there is really no hope for you to have a good relationship. That is another myth that we have to throw off, so that we can get into what I call Reality.

On his contract negotiations with the Devils: It's beyond money at this point. They're not even treating him as a member of their family, unless it's a dysfunctional family.

It is a family; it's a slightly dysfunctional family, but it's also very close and warm and loving family.

We all come from dysfunctional families and these days I guess that's pretty normal.

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls is the quintessential dysfunctional family.

When I clicked into this idea of doing a band and examining a band as a dysfunctional family, I wanted to reverse that Rescue Me formula.

Weddings are never about the bride and groom, weddings are public platforms for dysfunctional families.

Well, while I didn't have the more extreme experiences of some of my characters, I didn't exactly come from the most normal of households. Or rather, it was normal, in that dysfunctional families appear to be the norm.

Abusive parents have inappropriate expectations of their children, with a reversal of dependence needs. Parents treat an abused child as if the child were older than the parents. A parent often turns to the child for reassurance, nurturing, comfort, and protection and expects a loving response.

With words, I could build a world I could live in. I had a very dysfunctional family, and a very hard childhood. So I made a world out of words. And it was my salvation.

Along with the trust issues, one of the hardest parts to deal with is the feeling of not being believed or supported, especially by your own grandparents and extended family. When I have been through so much pain and hurt and have to live with the scars every day, I get angry knowing that others think it is all made up or they brush it off because my cousin was a teenager. I was ten when I was first sexually abused by my cousin, and a majority of my relatives have taken the perpetrator's side. I have cried many times about everything and how my relatives gave no support or love to me as a kid when this all came out. Not one relative ever came up to that innocent little girl I was and said "I am sorry for what you went through" or "I am here for you." Instead they said hurtful things: "Oh he was young." "That is what kids do." "It is not like he was some older man you didn't know." Why does age make a difference? It is a sick way of thinking. Sexual abuse is sexual abuse. What is wrong with this picture? It brings tears to my eyes the way my relatives have reacted to this and cannot accept the truth. Denial is where they would rather stay.

A controlled child also learns that the default human approach to interaction is forcing, threatening, or manipulating others. Alternatively, they may come to believe that they are “destined” to be a giver who never receives anything back.

A child needs to feel safe and protected, which means that their body, psyche, and belongings are safe and secure from violation. Because a child is helpless and dependent on their caregiver, they need a guardian in this predominantly unknown and sometimes scary and dangerous world. A child’s caregiver is responsible to fit the roles of safe haven and protector.

And could you, from a place of love, actually stand up and, use force, to give someone back, the suffering, they were trying to put on you? Would I do it? Maybe it would even be, an act of fierce compassion, as Enso Roshi sometimes talked about, to not take it any more. To not cow down, anymore. To let my father know, the tyrant, the aggressor, that if he hits me, I’m going to hit back, and hard.

Another preoccupation fed into this dynamic relationship between discovery and denial: does sexual abuse actually matter? Should it, in fact, be allowed? After all, it was only in the 19070s that the Paedophile Information Exchange had argued for adults’ right to have sex with children – or rather by a slippery sleight of word, PIE inverted the imperative by arguing that children should have the right to have sex with adults. This group had been disbanded after the imprisonment of Tom O’Carroll, its leader, with some of its activists bunkered in Holland’s paedophile enclaves, only to re-appear over the parapets in the sex crime controversies of the 1990s. How recent it was, then, that paedophilia was fielded as one of the liberation movements, how many of those on the left and right of the political firmament, were – and still are – persuaded that sex with children is merely another case for individual freedom? Few people in Britain at the turn of the century publicly defend adults’ rights to sex with children. But some do, and they are to be found nesting in the coalition crusading against evidence of sexual suffering. They have learned from the 1970s, masked their intentions and diverted attention on to ‘the system’. Others may not have come out for paedophilia but they are apparently content to enter into political alliances with those who have. We believe that this makes their critique of survivors and their allies unreliable. Others genuinely believe in false memories, but may not be aware of the credentials of some of their advisors.

Children need their caregiver’s presence, interaction, connection, and emotional availability. Not only are these fundamental elements closely related to feelings of safety and security, they are also vital for a child’s healthy development. Since the child’s well-being depends on the bond between themselves and their caregiver, it is their caregiver’s responsibility to be very attentive both to their own selves and to their child.

Attitudes and ignorance” about (any type of) abuse can be passed down through the generations. It is important to our healing that we sort out the belief systems we adopt; belief systems that were taught to us and because they are so full of lies, they lead to all kinds of depressions, addictions and other struggles while we try to cope with the manifestations of the problems instead of the roots of the problems.

Everything his parents repressed, Severin contracted and kept, collected almost, with the ambition to revive it when needed.

Crying is the primary way by which infants and small children convey their needs. Their cries can be from hunger, pain, fear, neglect, and many other things. It is the caregiver’s responsibility to correctly decipher these needs and then meet them. It is tragically common, however, that the child’s cries are so often ignored, misunderstood, and even taken as an "attack" on the caregiver, which may result in an active and brutal punishment of the child.

Dawn cackles as she guides me through the all-glass porch. Thinner, paler Reina shuffles about behind Dawn, watching as I slip my boots off. Although she tries to hide her hands, her fingers flicker nervously. I place my boots neatly on the floor of the porch beside the other pairs in the shadows under the coats. Music drifts through to us from a distant room – it’s the Beach Boys’ California Dreamin’. Dawn looks at me and I smile – they’ve put the record on for me. Dawn nods along happily. ‘Hear you’re a surfer boy!’ she says and she mimics riding a wave.

Here's an idea, how about you stop drinking? How about you go to rehab? Or you could just do us all a favor and die.

Furthermore, the controlling caregiver possesses poor boundaries, if they have any at all. These poor boundaries set the child up for numerous failures in adult life. The controlled child is like a chess piece or toy soldier who is constantly moved around, picked up, put down, ordered to do this, ordered not to do that, commanded to feel this, and commanded not to feel that.

Fear of breaking family loyalty is one of the greatest stumbling blockages to recovery. Yet, until we admit certain things we would rather excuse or deny, we cannot truly begin to put the past in the past, and leave it there once and for all. Unless we do that, we cannot even begin to think of having a future that is fully ours, untethered to the past, and we will be destined to repeat it.

i can't tell if my mother is terrified or in love with my father it all looks the same i flinch when you touch me i fear it is him

Incest does not occur in a vacuum... Needless to say, incest is not a function of a healthy home. It is important to note that it is not known how much of the traumatic stress reaction or emotional disturbance is caused by the sexual act of incest and how much is caused by the unhealthy, emotionally deprived, neglect-filled home environment that fosters incestuous activity.

If a child’s emotional and intellectual freedom is restricted, their development and well-being suffer, which leads to complex problems in later life. Deprivation of thought and emotion results in an irrationality of cognition, feeling, and communication.

If I, as a child, claim that something awful has happened—that someone has done something terrible to me—and everyone around me acts as if nothing is the matter, then either I must be crazy, or all of them are. And when you’re a kid and your life depends on all these people, there is no choice: of course, I must be crazy.

I’m an aid worker. I’ve been helping South Sudanese people who’ve returned to their villages after being displaced by the civil war prepare for the rainy season, which, by all accounts, is going to suck elephant dicks this year.

Ignoring a baby’s cries without addressing their needs can permanently harm them. All of these failures may lead a child to have post-traumatic stress disorder or any of the forms of panic disorder in their adulthood.

In Ireland we have the phenomenon known as a "Spoiled Priest." Unlike a spoiled child, this does not refer to a Priest throwing a temper tantrum.

I was never allowed to have any pets. Sometimes I think a puppy might have changed everything.

My sister only has one side of the story but she is sure that she knows the whole story because that is how the dysfunctional system works. We don’t question everyone or even consider that there may be another side to the story but instead automatically believe the one who has the most power in the relationship.

Meanwhile, infants and small children are exceptionally authentic beings because their emotional reactions and their thoughts are raw and honest. If they are happy, they smile, giggle, exclaim in pure joy, and feel excited, motivated, curious, and creative. If they are hurt, they cry, disengage, get angry, seek help and protection, and feel betrayed, sad, scared, lonely, and helpless. They don’t hide behind a mask.

My mom called Grandma today and told her we would no longer be attending family parties. My mom told her we have had enough of being blamed for something Brian did and everyone brushing it off like it was no big deal.

Perhaps nothing so accurately characterizes dysfunctional families as denial.

Only when a child’s authenticity is threatened do they develop unhealthy behaviors, distorted reality perceptions, and emotional difficulties. When you force a child to do what they don’t want to do, feel what they don’t feel, and think what they don’t think, their authentic self becomes damaged.

One needn't stop dysfunction; just evince and reflect.